St. John’s Wort, Everybody Loves It!
In ancient times, St. John’s Wort was used as a sedative or to treat malaria. It was also popular as a balm for wounds, burns and insect bites.
The impressive health benefits of St. John’s Wort include its ability to help with depression, improve mood swings, relieve anxiety, reduce the severity of pre-menstrual symptoms, ease addictive tendencies, regulate hormonal activity, protect against viral infections, reduce inflammation, and soothe the nervous system.
St. John’s Wort herb is a very good restorative tonic for the nervous system and is perhaps most well-known for its anti-depressant nature. For generations, it has been widely used to relieve symptoms of depression and is a popular natural solution. It contains antidepressant chemicals that inhibit or delay the reuptake of certain neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.
St. John’s Wort helps improve the mood for seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that occurs during the winter months because of lack of sunlight.
St. John’s Wort helps with other emotional disorders such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), menopausal mood swings, and premenstrual syndrome.
St. John’s Wort is widely recommended for women who suffer from feminine sexual health such as mood swings, pre-menstrual syndrome and menopause. St. John’s Wort can help reduce mood swings and anxiety in menopausal women and reduce the severity of cramping and pre-menstrual irritation and depression.
St. John’s works to restore hormonal balance, its active ingredients also have a strong effects on hormone regulation in the body. It also helps reduce of symptoms of hypothyroidism and helps the thyroid gland release normal levels of hormones again.
Today, St. John’s Wort is used for anxiety, and some sleep disorders due to depression, sadness, decreased energy, fatigue, restlessness, insomnia, irritability or melancholy. St. John’s Wort acts in harmony with the brain’s sleep-inducing mechanism, enhancing its action instead of overriding it.
St. John’s Wort is a natural sedative and pain reliever. It can be used for sciatica or rheumatic pain. St. John’s Wort helps relieve excessive pain by removing the effects of shock giving the mind and body a feeling of vigor and well being. This is valuable for post-surgical pain or helping to relieve fibromyalgia pain. The soothing nature of St. John’s Wort and the rich concentration of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds make it perfect for easing pain of arthritis, gout, joint discomfort, and muscle ache. Just as it helps to ease inflammation on the skin and in the gut, St. John’s Wort also lowers inflammation in the cardiovascular system, which in turn, helps lower blood pressure and decreases stress to the heart.
St John’s Wort can help with opioid withdrawal. It reduces the physical withdrawal symptoms and is a therapeutic aid. It also helps with withdrawal symptoms of alcoholism and eases cravings and withdrawal symptoms after quitting cigarettes or any other addictive substances.
St. John’s Wort can speed the healing process of burns, bruises, and scrapes by stimulating circulation of oxygenated blood to damaged skin cells. Topically, St. John’s Wort is antiviral, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory helping wounds and burns to heal quickly.
DISCLAIMER
This information is to be used for educational purposes only and has been solely based on the historic and traditional use of herbs. This information has not been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Part of KuKista’s roots come from an original group informally interested in knowing more about the healing properties of medicinal plants. Initially, a collective effort to compile information to share with each other was started without regards to sources or references. KuKista recognizes all information on our website to be “shared” information without the intention of plagiarism, acknowledgement to original authors and sources or copyright infringements. We have made a conscious effort to give credit where credit is due, and will be happy to reference, change or remove any particular source information.